House Passes REINS Act to Curb Administrative State

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas on Aug. 6, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)

The House passed a bill that would require major regulations from agencies to secure approval from Congress.

The Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act made it through on June 14 with 221 yeas and 210 nays.

The bill, also known as H.R. 277, can be read here.

In the hours before the vote, representatives debated multiple amendments to it.

The House agreed to multiple amendments from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) as well as amendments from other lawmakers.

One offered by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.), Wyoming’s replacement for Liz Cheney, would make the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs assess whether every rule has a significant economic impact.

One from Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) enables Congress to review all existing agency rules over a half-decade period.

An amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) to lower the threshold for a “major regulation” from one with a likely economic impact of $100 million to one with a likely economic impact of $50 million failed.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) expressed concern over the measure.

“I think it’s an effort at deregulation that would weaken the ability to have common-sense regulation for safety,” he told The Epoch Times in a June 14 interview.

“I think we have to, no pun intended, rein in executive overreach,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) in comments to The Epoch Times on June 14.

REINS on the Administrative State

By requiring agencies to gain the favor of Congress, the measure adds to and flips the standard under the Congressional Review Act.

As it currently stands, the Congressional Review Act can allow Congress to stop new agency rules through a joint resolution of disapproval—a simple piece of legislation that must pass both the House and the Senate.

Congress first tried to pass the REINS Act more than a decade ago, soon after Republicans made massive gains in the 2010 midterm election.

“The tremendous significance of the REINS Act has led to fierce debate about both its constitutionality and its wisdom,” George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Siegel wrote in a law review article (pdf) at the time.

The first state-level REINS Act was passed in Wisconsin in 2017 under then-Governor Scott Walker.

In a June 5 committee hearing on the REINS Act and other legislation, Republicans suggested that existing tools, including the joint resolution of disapproval, are inadequate for exercising authority over the administrative state.

“Just in the 118th Congress, both the House and the Senate passed legislation to overturn the unlawful WOTUS [Waters of the United States] rule as issued by the EPA, to overturn the tariff repeal on solar panels made in China, and to overturn the radical ESG requirements issued by federal agencies. Yet each of those times, the President of the United States vetoed the actions of the House of Representatives and the Senate,” Hageman said during that hearing.

When the president vetoes a joint resolution of disapproval, it’s dead and buried—that is, unless supporters can convince two-thirds majorities in both chambers to vote for it.

That’s tough at any time, but it’s even harder to fathom in a closely divided Congress during a period of intense political polarization.

Democrat Response

At the June 5 hearing, Democrats argued that Congress does have recourse to the joint resolution of disapproval and other tools to oversee executive-branch agencies.

Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) said REINS could “bring government operations to a grinding halt.”

In addition, she claimed it could be a legislative veto. Those are unconstitutional because of a Supreme Court case from 1983, INS v. Chadha.

In his law review article on the previous REINS Act, Siegel concluded that it would in fact be constitutional. According to Siegel, however, it would also be unworkable as policy.

“Congress lacks the time and expertise to vote responsibly on every regulation,” he wrote.

During the June 5 hearing, Hageman pointed out that rules have only rarely been taken out through the joint resolution of disapproval, saying it means something with more teeth is needed to bring the administrative state to heel.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said that trend “is a testament to the validity and the virtue of the rules” federal agencies produce.

He said that REINS and another bill discussed in the same hearing, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act, “both represent efforts to dismantle and undermine the administrative process in different and dangerous ways that would frustrate the purpose of government and would put our constituents in harm’s way.”